Archives for January 2013

That's Too Heavy!
"It's too heavy for me!" my two year old cried. In reality, she meant the task was too difficult. In this case, it was putting on her sneakers. We've been learning all about determination this month during our midweek Children's Ministry program, so it seemed like the ideal time to teach a little determination in our own home. Want a few ideas? Read on, my friend.
Definition of Determination:
In our Children's Ministry curriculum (252Basics), determination is defined as … [Read more...]

As I mentioned before, we're doing a bit of homeschooling this year with my three year old. It's been a lot of fun, but it's also made me a bit nervous about "the real thing". Am I really ready to homeschool my kids when it starts to really matter? How do you know if you'll be a good homeschool mom, anyway? I'd love to hear your thoughts! In the meantime, I thought I'd highlight some of the projects we've been working on! You can see full tutorials over at 3 Boys and a Dog where I … [Read more...]

Did you ever have a project that just took on a life of it's own? Our Children's Church creation mural was one of those projects! I knew covering "what happened on what day" wasn't going to cut it with these kids, so we needed to think a little more "outside the box" for the day's lesson. We have a wide age range in our Children's Church program, so it needed to be something simple to explain and easy to implement.
Someone from our church had recently donated a GIANT roll of "throw-away" … [Read more...]

Do the kids in your ministry help out?
After being challenged by both Karl Bastian and a class at I took at Children's Ministry University Online (CMUO) a few years back, I've been working hard to get the kids to take more responsibility in our kids program.
Karl Bastian, from Kidology, says, "Don't ever do something a kid could do for you!" If a kid can hold a prop, let him. If a kid can do the puppet skit, don't break your back trying to be four different characters! If a kid can carry … [Read more...]

Hey folks! Since I'm obviously never going to get around to TYPING a review for this book, I thought I'd do a video review of it instead. Turns out, that's MUCH faster!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqR6_oqsa2c&list=HL1358474893
What About You?
What great leadership books have you read recently? … [Read more...]

Some of my earliest memories of my home church involve the Henretty family. Tom and Denise Henretty were the youth leaders when our family first starting attending and the bubbly, crazy nature of Denise was perfectly balanced by her calm and collected husband. They did a great job leading us spiritually and when the Lord called them to another church (to enter ministry full time), we were certainly sad to see them go. Their daughter, Kayla, attended the same college as I did (Go Geneva!), … [Read more...]